Many electrical connectors include a dielectric housing having an opening or receptacle for receiving a complementary mating connector or other mating connecting device. A plurality of conductive terminals have contact portions exposed at or in the receptacle for engaging appropriate contacts of the mating connector. Other protectible components also may be exposed in the receptacle. Examples of such connectors are a memory card connector which has a receptacle for receiving a memory card or a flat circuit connector having a receptacle for receiving a flat flexible circuit, a flexible printed circuit or the like.
One of the problems with electrical connectors having receptacles that expose terminals or other components is that the contact portions of the terminals, for instance, may be engaged by an operator's fingers or other foreign objects which may cause damage to or deformation of the terminals. In order to alleviate these problems, some such electrical connectors are provided with protective covers or shutters which close the mating receptacle and which are movable to open positions during mating. For instance, such shutters are shown in Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 5-23446, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-266028 and Japanese Patent No. 2601801.
In shutter-type connectors as described above, the shutter may be pivotally mounted at the receptacle by a hinge means which includes a pivot shaft of metal or like material as an independent part. Unfortunately, such separate pivot shafts increase the costs of the connector, include an additional assembly step and the shaft must be maintained in inventory.
If the pivot shaft is integral with the shutter or the connector housing at the receptacle in order to reduce the number of parts, the shaft typically is forcibly inserted into a bearing hole during assembly. This type of structure is prone to causing breakage of the shaft, and the assembly procedure often is difficult. If the pivot shaft is inserted into a narrowed insertion groove of the bearing hole, the shaft has a tendency to pull out of the hole during repeated usage. The present invention is directed to a shutter-type system which solves these various problems.